a recipe of popped amaranth parfait with strawberry preserve and home cooking made easier by supermarkets

12:53 PM

I like shopping in street markets for my vegetables and fruits and the superbly stocked weekly market in my area is where I get my fresh stock replenished every week. I feel miserable when I have to skip my Thursday market as fresh leafy greens, all unusual vegetables and fresh local fruits of the season would be hard to come by in the luxuriously stocked supermarkets that we have around our place. And then there is the Pusa sales counter at IARI that caters to our needs of exotic herbs and vegetables although we get what they decide to grow and stock but I have no reason to complaint. I grow the rest myself, and more.

So when I go to a superstore like Foodhall, I don't get excited by the idea of fresh produce being available in plenty. But this time Foodhall surprised me by letting me know that one can get the vegetables washed, rinsed and chopped to your specifications, fresh fruits chopped or juiced according to your preference, cheese dips made fresh for you and much more. It made me feel glad to be honest. I mean who wouldn't like to go for a coffee in the evening and get grocery shopping and half the cooking done by instructing a few well trained staff. I heart home cooking and I found this kind of arrangement really really good for an urban family. For an urban working woman or a single working person who loved good food and wants it fresh. This facility is available at Foodhall at Gurgaon Central mall.

Foodhall keeps doing recipe demonstrations so the customers discover new ingredients and learn more about them. Knowing about an ingredients is not useful until one knows how to incorporate in day to day cooking, so I appreciate this effort. Ms Kanchan Kappor was doing a demonstration of a few party dishes made healthy and she made a quinoa salad with dried fruits, nuts and baby spinach with a buttermilk based dressing. It was an interesting salad with refreshing flavours.

She also cooked a Prawns curry with coconut milk, saffron and a hint of wasabi, served on a bed of cooked quinoa. I don't heart quinoa as I feel we have many local grains that are way better than quinoa, but the popularity of quinoa is growing by leaps and bounds.

I learnt that Foodhall stocks all millets, organic millet flours, grains like Amaranth and red rice, sticky rice etc. All kinds of nuts, seeds, dehydrated fruits of good quality can be bought under one roof. The best thing is, all kinds of cheeses can be found under one roof, all spices of the world are available and one can get their own spice blends mixed and millet right there. I loved this concept so much.

And you get the best of fresh fruits there, local as well as imported so stock up your fruits whenever you go there. I made a strawberry preserve with vanilla using their strawberries and used that to make a yummy yogurt parfait with popped amaranth.
This Parfait can be had for breakfast as a cereal with more fresh fruit if required and as a dessert in small serving. Popped amaranth tastes heavenly soaked in all the yogurt and strawberry preserve. You can even keep it refrigerated overnight, the consistency becomes richer when you let it rest for a while.

ingredients

(2 servings)

popped amaranth 1 cup

unsweetened coconut shreds 2 tbsp

chopped almonds 1 tbsp

chopped walnuts 1 tbsp

chopped prunes 1 tbsp

chopped dehydrated fruit mix 1 tbsp

*strawberry vanilla preserve 4 tbsp+1 tbsp

hung yogurt 1.5 cup

procedure

Mix the hung yogurt with 4 tbsp strawberry vanilla preserve lightly and chill for an hour.

Mix the popped amaranth with the dehydrated fruits and nuts and keep aside.

Take 2 stemmed glasses (preferably chilled) or any tall glasses and layer these two as desired. Garnish with a bit of strawberry preserve and chopped nuts. Use fresh strawberry slices for garnish if desired.

Serve chilled after 10-15 minutes standing time. The good thing is, the parfait can be chilled for several hours after assembling. In this case the popped amaranth gets soggy and soaks up all the strawberry yogurt flavours, making the parfait really interesting, almost like a sundae.

* To make strawberry vanilla preserve, chop 200 gm strawberries and mix with 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water. Add a scrapes vanilla bean to it and cook till a thick saucy preserve is made. Use as desired.

4 comments

I have been meaning to make this parfait for weekend breakfast and one thing holding me back is not having access to popped amaranth here. W do get whole amaranth seeds.I tried popping about quater cup in an iron kadai. Initially the seeds started to pop, i got almost a tablespoon worth popped amaranth but soon it all stopped and turned light brown. I was careful to not let it burn but even at light brown stage remaining seeds stopped popping. Any particular technique to pop them at home?. How are these popped in India? Thank you,Neha. Oh, I did make the strawberry jam including using orange seeds for pectin..it is really a very very good jam. Thanks for sharing such delightful recipes!

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